


something lower to the notes

by seventhstar



Series: a covenant with a bright blazing star [20]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Yuuri, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Regency, Innuendo, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Regency, Regency Romance, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 06:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17239136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: It’s strange, to miss someone who is so present, whose face Yuuri watches the sunlight touch every morning and whose steady breathing lulls Yuuri to sleep every night. But he has become accustomed to Viktor’s constant presence, to the way his scent lingers in the air wherever Yuuri is, to being separated from him only by Yuuri’s own stupidity.Viktor’s kiss has freed him. Yuuri can admit to himself what he has denied: he is in love with Viktor.The irony,Yuuri thinks,is that I insisted I did not love him when I had him to myself. Now I desperately want to shower him in affection, and cannot catch him alone long enough to do it.[part of an ongoing series of fics, telling the story of poor and scandalous trademan's son viktor nikiforov's marriage of convenience to the reclusive lord katsuki]





	something lower to the notes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/gifts).



> regency mondays are a go! i won't update every monday, but when i do update it will always be a monday! i'm hoping that'll help me organize myself a little better. my ideal schedule would be twice a month, but i think i can promise at least a monthly update :)
> 
> that said, i have next week's update done and two weeks of updates outlined after that.

There is no reason for Yuuri to be jealous.

So far, he has had this argument with himself no less than six times an hour for the past three days. Since Chris’s arrival, he and Viktor have been joined at the hip, spending every second together. They toured the house, took a turn about the gardens, and have now taken to rambling across the grounds. According to the cook, they collect a basket of food every morning after breakfast, and return it, empty, just in time for them to dress for dinner.

That is one of two things about Chris’s visit that Yuuri enjoys: since they have guests for dinner, Viktor spends an hour every evening polishing himself in preparation. Chris, as far as Yuuri can tell, merely changes his clothes. Yuuri himself, despite both his efforts and the efforts of his poor valet, does not feel that he looks any better than usual. But Viktor looks stunning—clothes starched and fine, collars elaborately knotted, curls falling down his back like a waterfall of silver—and makes the forty minute wait for dinner every day worth it.

The second thing that Yuuri enjoys, of course, is that Viktor is very happy.

“Dear,” Viktor said on the first day, “it is kind of you to host him.”

“No,” Yuuri said too loudly. Down the hall, a put out Withers looked at him. “I mean. It is your house. So you can have guests.”

“He did attack you.”

“Oh, well.”

Viktor had pressed his hand and kissed Yuuri on the tip of his bruised nose. It was very hard, after that, to maintain any anger about being planted a facer.

In the three days he has been bereft of Viktor’s presence, Yuuri has tried to devote himself to the estate. In particular, he has been trying to allot out money for Viktor. Per the terms of their marriage settlement, he is owed some pin money, and beyond that Yuuri ought to outfit him with all the trappings of a husband: clothes and jewels and dressing tables and whatever else Viktor desires.

_I miss him._

It’s strange, to miss someone who is so present, whose face Yuuri watches the sunlight touch every morning and whose steady breathing lulls Yuuri to sleep every night. But he has become accustomed to Viktor’s constant presence, to the way his scent lingers in the air wherever Yuuri is, to being separated from him only by Yuuri’s own stupidity.

Viktor’s kiss has freed him. Yuuri can admit to himself what he has denied: he is in love with Viktor.

_The irony,_ Yuuri thinks, _is that I insisted I did not love him when I had him to myself. Now I desperately want to shower him in affection, and cannot catch him alone long enough to do it._

He stares down at the open book on his desk; it is a treatise on magical sharpening methods for farming equipment. It was delivered from town yesterday—Yuuri paid to have it rushed to him—but it is no distraction from the memory of Viktor’s lips, of the phantom warmth of his body.

_Soon,_ Yuuri thinks, fingertips running aimlessly over the page.

 

* * *

 

Viktor joins him to dress for dinner a mere half hour before the meal is served. They stand side by side, crowded in front of the mirror; Viktor is deft and precise, Yuuri is haphazard.

“Chris and I ransacked your library today, I am afraid.” Viktor, who is twining his hair around a poker with one hand and casting with the other, smiles. Yuuri sees it in the mirror. “I looked through some of your ledgers.”

“Did you?” Yuuri pulls too hard on his cravat and narrowly avoids strangling himself with it.

“They are quite dreadful. Shall I audit them for you?”

“It is boring work.”

“Judging by the number of errors, it certainly must be.”

Viktor tosses his head and shakes out his curls, then reaches for one of the pins lying on the vanity. They are the ones Yuuri bought for him; they are adorned with dark blue gems that catch the firelight and stand out against Viktor’s pale hair. Minako had instructed Yuuri on how to choose pins the way Yuuri’s tutors had drilled him on the dates and times of the five Acts Governing The Practice Of Magic that form the basis of the law that deals with magic in England.

“You must have much to discuss with him.”

“Gossip, mostly.”

“You must have been longing for news of your friends.”

“Not particularly.”

“No one?”

“No.” Viktor sets the last pin in place. He arranges a few curls to dangle over his ear. “I must disappoint you. I have been idling the days away with frivolous gossip, and have neglected you besides—so you see, a few hours with your ledgers is a just punishment.”

Yuuri jabs a pin into his cravat with the futile hope of appearing fashionably tousled. He turns toward Viktor, who is wrapping a collar about his throat. Viktor is so close that his curls tickle Yuuri’s cheek.

“I am not neglected.” He inhales. He can smell the rosewater Viktor must have wet his collar with. “At least Mr. Giacometti is not a Boot-Collins—”

Viktor kisses him the words from his lips. Yuuri takes his hands, careful to keep from mussing Viktor’s hair or clothes. He means to pull away, but instead lingers, mouth against Viktor’s mouth. Viktor’s lips are as soft as rose petals; it’s only when a gong rings loudly downstairs that they break apart.

Yuuri’s ears are burning.

“What was that?”

“The dinner gong.”

“We have a dinner gong?”

“It hasn’t been rung since my parents…Mari and I used to fight over who would get to ring it.”

“I want to ring it,” Viktor declares. He does not look discomfited by kissing, which is unfair. Yuuri’s heart is still pounding. “Yuuri?”

“Yes?”

Viktor pulls Yuuri flush against him and kisses him again. When he pulls away, he frowns, and for one terrible moment Yuuri thinks his technique is about to be criticized. Yuuri has not kissed very many people. Kissing, like math, magic, and tying cravats, is one of the skills in which Viktor excels and Yuuri does not.

“What is that thing around your neck?”

“It is called a cravat.”

“No, I can’t be seen with you this way. Are you trying your hand at inventing a new knot?”

“Perhaps I am.”

Viktor plucks out the tie pin and holds up the cravat. He holds it gingerly between two fingertips. It shudders, then flattens as it pressed, then stiffens as if starched. It winds itself around Yuuri’s neck and ties itself in Yuuri’s usual and boring style. Viktor pushes the pin back into place and nods.

“There,” he says. “Perfect.”

 

* * *

 

“So, Lord Katsuki,” Chris says to Yuuri over dinner.  It’s the first time he and Yuuri have spoken over the past three days; other than the most banal of civilities, Chris has pretended that Yuuri does not exist, and Yuuri has facilitated this impression by keeping out of his and Viktor’s way. “Viktor tells me you are very strong.”

“He does? I mean. Yes.”

“How strong?”

“I lifted a cow for a wager, once,” Yuuri says. “Twenty pounds.”

“Did you win the wager?” Chris asks.

“What did you do with the twenty pounds?” Viktor asks.

“I did win. It was a small cow,” Yuuri adds. He suspects that his fellow students had worried he might injure himself. “And I bought myself three rare texts and a new coat.”

“Why did you need a new coat?”

“I tore the one I was wearing lifting the cow.” Yuuri’s clothes had not been made for such athletic pursuits.

Chris whistles. Viktor eyes Yuuri speculatively, like he is trying to decide if Yuuri is stupid or not. Possibly he objects to what Yuuri paid for the coat. _In my defense,_ Yuuri thinks, _I did need to replace it, there were already holes in it from the incident with the torch juggling._

“And how large are your feet, my lord?”

“Uh.” Yuuri glances under the table. Chris snorts and then yelps; Yuuri looks up just in time to see Viktor elbow him in the side. “I am not…sure…” Both Chris and Viktor are laughing, Chris blatantly, Viktor behind his hand.

“Well?” Chris asks. “Viktor? Is he a tree trunk or a sapling?”

“Stop, you ogre,” Viktor chokes with poorly suppressed laughter, which Yuuri would enjoy much more if it wasn’t at his expense, “it’s not as if I measured!”

_Oh._ Yuuri crosses his legs and wonders where exactly on the arboreal scale he measures. He can only hope to be more branch than twig. Or, failing that, hope that all the jests about size his peers have made are more bravado than fact. It is not as if Yuuri has any basis of comparison.

_And what does he mean, he hasn_ _’t measured? Has he looked?_

“Well, Lord Katsuki?” Chris asks. “Do you satisfy?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says. “Do I?”

“If not, Viktor, you’re welcome to share my bed.”

“I’m married, Chris,” Viktor says. “You know we can hardly behave that way anymore.”

Yuuri can only imagine what that way is, and though the breadth of his experience is narrow, his imagination more than makes up for the lack. He has seen enough of Viktor to extrapolate all the unknown—his silken skin, his narrow waist, his muscled thighs—every inch of him exquisite. Chris interests Yuuri not at all; the fantasy that passes through Yuuri’s mind reduces him to a blur of hands, out of focus as if seen through warped glass. Yuuri wonders what it would be like to please Viktor. He wonders if Viktor wants to be pleased.

“Dinner is delicious tonight, don’t you think?”

The conversation, mercifully, turns to safer topics. Yuuri asks Chris about his business, which leads them to the topic of foci. Viktor favors glass and speaks at length about it; the string of lightning-filled beads he carries was one of Mr. Kou’s creations. The rest of Viktor’s foci, Yuuri learns, were his mother’s.

“She had bottles filled with moonlight,” Viktor says.

Yuuri remembers the bluish sheen to Viktor’s hair on their wedding. _So that_ _’s how he did it._

“I wonder that you never sold them, Viktor,” Chris says. “Even one of them would have fetched a solid price.”

“They were my mother’s,” Viktor replies. “Besides, it was a great effort to smuggle them out from under the nose of the creditors.”

“Creditors?” Yuuri asks.

“My parents died in debt,” Viktor says. He does not elaborate, and Yuuri does not ask, not here at the dinner table. It does not surprise him; Viktor has mentioned before that money was scarce when he was younger, and if Viktor’s parents had left him anything of value, surely he would have done his best to remain respectable and make a good match. _Surely only desperation would lead him to_ _…_ Yuuri shakes his head to clear it and returns his attention to his meal. No wonder Viktor is so concerned with saving money; he knows as well as Yuuri does how easily everything can be lost. “The foci were all I could save. I wish I could have managed to keep the mirror.”

“Yes,” Chris says, “that is what you need, to spend more time admiring yourself.”

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, Chris.”

“At least I still have my youth.”

“I thought you were older than Viktor,” Yuuri lies. Yuuri has no idea how old Chris is, though he cannot see that it makes a difference, since Viktor is prettier than he is and Chris is old enough that age will not improve his looks. “I thought you must be twenty-eight at least.”

“I am twenty-five!”

Viktor laughs, openly, without covering his mouth with his hand this time. Even when he wears no illusion, even when he is honestly happy, Viktor conceals his laughter, like there is something shameful about it. But uncovered and open, he overflows with vitality; Yuuri, despite himself, laughs, too.

Chris finishes off his glass of wine and reaches for the decanter, which Yuuri has had left out so that no one has to wait on them while they eat. Even now, a grown man of twenty-four, Yuuri feels uncomfortable eating at formal dinner parties where a battalion of servants wage war on the table, whisking away dishes and refilling glasses and judging the guests without saying one word. Meals with his family had always been informal, and modest, and full of joy.

For a moment, Yuuri lets himself imagine his parents at the table with him, and then lets it go. His parents would be glad to know there were guests in the house, laughter at dinner. _I almost wish Chris would stay longer,_ Yuuri thinks. _But only almost._

 

* * *

 

“Viktor, I cannot get this untied.”

“What?”

“This cravat! Is it meant to masquerade as a hangman’s noose?”

Viktor is seated in front of the mirror, combing out his hair. With every stroke the curls in his hair unwind, leaving it pin straight; he’s already shed all his dinner things and put on a nightshirt. If Yuuri was perfectly honest with himself, he would have to admit that he has not made a whole-hearted attempt to undo the cravat or break the spell. Instead he has been staring at Viktor’s bare feet against the carpet and wondering if it would be ungentlemanly to go into the bath and pour ice water over his head.

“Come here.” Viktor puts down the comb and turns toward him, a hand outstretched. Yuuri complies, leaning forward so that Viktor can reach. With a touch, the cravat comes undone. The sudden chill against his throat burns; Yuuri realizes the scent glands in his neck are flushing. He glances at himself in the mirror, sees the telltale red spots, and resists the urge to cover them with his hands. “I hope Chris did not make you too uncomfortable.”

“No.” Yuuri divests himself of his coat and shirt. “Were you really lovers?”

“…we were intimate.” Viktor turns back to the mirror and resumes tending to his hair.

“Oh. Did you…did you want to?”

The back of Viktor’s neck is pink. Yuuri stares at it.

“What do you mean, Yuuri?”

Yuuri’s stomach turns over. He stares at the floor, avoiding Viktor’s reflection in the mirror; Viktor’s stare cuts like a butcher’s knife, as if he could see the turmoil of want and discomfort in Yuuri’s belly.

“I mean…it has been a long time since you…if you want to spend the night with him, it would not offend me.”

The moment the words leave his lips, Yuuri curses himself for speaking them; why must every idiotic thought that crosses his mind in Viktor’s presence inevitably voiced? Why does he think that encouraging Viktor to bed his friend will ease Yuuri’s guilt over lusting after him? Yuuri has no illusions about the strength of his self-discipline. If Viktor retires to Chris’s bedroom for the night, Yuuri will lie here all night agonizing over whether it is sinful for him to pleasure himself while imagining them.

Viktor is silent for too long. Is he offended? Does he think Yuuri is accusing him of being a whore?

“You are kind,” Viktor says, finally. He pulls his hair over his shoulder to braid it. “Shall I look at your ledgers soon?”

“Please,” Yuuri says. He is craven enough that a non-answer is comforting, even if it is merely Viktor sparing Yuuri’s feelings. “Take them away from me, I beg you.”

They lie side by side that night. Yuuri does not have the courage to ask Viktor if he would like to be held, though the scent of Viktor’s hair makes Yuuri wish he could; he rests his hand between them instead.

Viktor takes it. He holds Yuuri’s hand; their fingers are still clasped when Yuuri falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year's eve, everyone! see you in 2019!
> 
> P.S. dedicated to spooky who is my mentor in terrible dick-related innuendo
> 
> you can find me [on tumblr](http://pencilwalla.tumblr.com/) or [on pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/seventhstar) or [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/starofseventh)


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